Old Maid's Puzzle (24 page)

I repeated the numbers. My phone beeped again urgently. "I'll put it in my safe, and we can put it back in the bank later," I told her.

"You mean, we'll take it to Jeremy." She waved me off and was gone, distracted by her grief for her friend. She still believed Larry's story that Jeremy needed the money for a down payment. I doubted Larry ever talked to Jeremy about him buying a house. All he needed to know was that Gussie had a grandson who was estranged from his family. He took it from there.

She could believe what she wanted. There was no harm in that, as long as I had the money, her savings were secure. I walked over to the shed. The door came open easily, practically falling off the rusted hinges. I knelt by the footlocker. Right, 12, left, 3, right, 4. I tugged on the padlock, but it was holding fast. Dammit. My fingers started to sweat. I tried again. The lock wouldn't budge. I went out of the shed, starting toward Celeste's. I took a few steps. I didn't really want to go over there.

I went back to the footlocker and pulled on the padlock again. No give. I looked around the shed. There was an old axe, the handle nearly orange with rust. I swung it at the lock, and missed, nearly hitting my foot. I jumped, adrenaline pumping.

I took a breath, waiting for my heart to stop racing. I coughed, the mildewy contents of the shed stirring up allergies. I needed to get out of here, but I wasn't going without the money.

I took a short swing, putting all my muscle behind it. The lock broke in two, and I pulled open the lid.

There was the twenty-nine thousand dollars. I fit the money in my backpack around my laptop. The laptop had never been worth so much.

SIXTEEN

I CALLED ZORN As I drove back to the office. What was the greater sin, driving while talking on the phone or not letting him in on what I knew? I'd risk the ticket.

"Anton Zorn," he barked into the phone.

"It's Dewey Pellicano," I said. "I have some information for you about the dead man in my alley."

"I'm listening," he said. I heard him pull out a pad.

I filled him in. "He's been going by the name of Larry Ferguson, living with one of my customers. An elderly woman, Celeste Radcliffe. And he was bilking her. I found some of her possessions on eBay. He seems to have discovered how valuable her pottery was and taken a large amount out of her home."

Zorn asked for Celeste's name and address. "I will want her to identify the body," he said.

I wished him silent good luck in getting past Gussie to talk to her.

"Do you have any more information about his cause of death?" I asked.

There was silence. "This is an ongoing investigation, Ms. Pellicano.

"I just wondered if he was poisoned, after all."

He said briskly. "The coroner has not ruled on the cause of death-only that the manner of death was homicide. I don't know where your information is coming from."

I had to set him straight, before Buster took the heat for telling me things he hadn't told me. "I don't have any inside information. I've heard from some people that this was a possibility. My boyfriend and I have not discussed this."

"Your information is sketchy at best." I could hear Zorn clicking on a keyboard. "Well, it looks like Larry Ferguson has much more of a history than Frank Bascomb," Zorn said.

"Like what?" I asked. He'd never given me this much before.

He caught himself. "Suffice it to say Larry Ferguson is well acquainted with the penal system," he said.

I waited for more, but nothing was forthcoming. Zorn remembered who he was talking to. He thanked me and hung up.

I didn't know what I'd expected from him. Gratitude? If he didn't want to acknowledge that I was the one who found out who Larry was, then so be it. We never took in much cash, and what we did went right into the bank.

At the store, I stashed Gussie's money, unloading my backpack into the safe. I dug out my laptop.

Vangie was out on the store floor with Jenn and Kym. They were filling goodie bags to be handed to the customers.

"Hey," I said. "I'd like a store meeting in five minutes. We'll do it out here as soon as I do this one thing."

I had to tell Ina and Pearl about Celeste. I found them in the classroom. Pearl wasn't hand quilting. She was adding paint to one of her small quilts.

She looked up guiltily. "I gave up," she said, as I walked in. "I'm not stitching another stitch on that Old Maid's Puzzle. My fingers are killing me."

"It's okay," I said. "I never intended for you to be hand quilting all week. Especially if you don't like to."

I was quiet for a few minutes. The two women watched me, reading the expression on my face and knowing that something was wrong. They exchanged a glance. Pearl put down her paint brushes, and Ina watched me from the quilting frame.

"I have some bad news," I finally said. Pearl and Ina clearly feared the worst.

"It's Larry, Celeste's guy. He's Frank Bascomb. He was the dead man in the alley."

Ina poked the needle into the quilt and pushed away from the frame. She was winding thread back on the spool, as she stood. "We'll go to her," she said.

"Gussie's there," I said. "Celeste took herself to bed."

"You were there?" Pearl said. Pearl jammed the lid on her small paint pot and stored it in a purple plastic pencil box.

I nodded. "Long story."

Ina said, "We'll get the scoop from Celeste. Let's go."

Pearl and Ina left in a flurry. I was touched by their leap into action. Celeste had wonderful friends. She would be okay.

Enough about Larry or Frank. I'd spent more time on him this week than on my shop. Now the sale was less than thirty-six hours away. I tried to quell the butterflies in my stomach.

I went out front. "Okay, I'd like a progress report from everyone. Where do we stand on the jobs done for the sale? We only have the remainder of today, and then tomorrow, to get done, so tell me what still needs to be done."

Vangie spoke first. "My special project is nearly complete."

"Okay," I said, knowing I'd put her on the spot. I didn't want to talk about the online store just yet. "The e-mail hasn't gone out about the sale yet, but I will do that tonight. The big shipment of notions got checked in this morning. Finally."

Jenn said, "We've put those all out already. We've finished bagging all the kits. We're just about done with the goodie bags."

"We could make some favors to go in them," Kym suggested.

There was no way. "Have all the shelves been dusted? Have you set aside the door prizes? Are the bathrooms cleaned?" I said, making my point. "The front window could use a fresh look, too."

"What about the QP Originals?" Kym said.

"Vangie and I will hang up the samples tonight," I said.

Jenn was busy taking notes. Kym just looked at me sourly. Life at Quilter Paradiso was getting back to normal.

"All right, then," I said. "There's plenty to do between now and the sale. We're going to need every last minute."

I returned to my office. The e-mail icon was up, so I checked my inbox. Another digest of messages from the guild. I scanned through.

I breathed a sigh of relief. There was a question about natural dyes, using hibiscus. Another looking for a source of ivory buttons. There was a hue and cry about someone's dog dying from tainted food. No mention of dead bodies. No mention of the store.

Finally things were back to normal.

The poisoning of the dog made me think about Mrs. Unites's theory about Frank, no, Larry's death.

Mrs. Unites had said that the face of the dead man looked like someone who died of DDT. San Jose had once been farmland. Orchards still existed, although they were harder to find. Redevelopment had paved the valley of the heart's delight and put up condos.

I went online to see if the chemical was still being used. It had been banned in the sixties.

Larry's face had been contorted. I remember thinking he must have died a painful death. According to the witnesses, he'd been lurching around the neighborhood for at least a half-hour before ending up in my alley. It sounded like a slow, torturous way to die.

I looked up poisonings, checking for the usual reactions. Vomiting seemed like a common denominator, but no one had reported Frank throwing up on his way to the alley.

Vangie appeared in the doorway, with the twenty-foot ladder.

"Ready to hang some quilts?" she asked.

I glanced at the clock. The store was still open.

She read my mind. "We haven't had a customer in hours. Only those people scouting out the stuff they want to buy when it's discounted. I found two bolts of Moda stashed behind the book display. Someone was thinking ahead."

Mindless work, just what I needed to keep my mind off Celeste's mourning.

SEVENTEEN

LATER THAT NIGHT, I tugged on the long silver handle, making the door rattle. It was locked tight. I was here alone, and I wanted to be sure I was safe.

Jenn and Kym left as soon as the store closed. Vangie had helped me hang the QP Original quilts, and then left for her bowling league.

Turning around, I walked into my store, following the path a new customer would take. I tried to look at the place with fresh eyes. In the clip from Wonderful World of Quilts, the store had looked to me like we could use some sprucing up. The Vineyard quilt, hung high, was in the same position that it was in when my mother was alive. Even with the quilts Vangie and I had just finished hanging, the store looked stale. We needed a change. I needed a change.

I'd put Vangie's poster on the front door, to set up some anticipation about the QP Originals. The loft railing was the perfect place for Ina's "Over Easy." Her pattern was just the thing for beginners. Eye-catching colors, simple shapes. The quilt looked great viewed from a distance.

Pearl's quilt was small, so it needed to be at eye level and securely fastened. We'd made a display board and placed the landscape near the cash register, so it'd be the last thing people would see. If we had a line of customers waiting to pay, as I hoped, her quilt would get a lot of attention.

Celeste's Garden quilt was intricate and needed to be seen up close to be appreciated. Redwork was an old-fashioned craft, but I was counting on the fact that many of my customers remembered their mothers or grandmothers embroidering and so might be tempted to try it themselves. Vangie had climbed the ladder, and we'd suspended the redwork quilt right over the cutting table. That would give the customers time to scrutinize it while they waited for their fabric to be cut.

Jenn's Home for the Holiday Quilt and Vangie's Starry Nights were hung along the alley wall, with their kits underneath. That was as far as Vangie and I had gotten before it was time for her to leave. I'd stayed behind. Buster was in L.A., and I had no desire to go home to an empty house.

I walked backward, trying to decide what I wanted to move. I wasn't the great merchandiser. Making things pretty was not my forte. That's why I'd let Kym continue in the role she'd had when my mother was alive. The problem was I didn't like her end product.

I tripped over a white wicker baby doll carriage that housed the flannel pre-printed panels. I heard a loud crack as I caught myself on the shelving nearby. I was okay, just a sore shin, but the doll carriage wasn't so lucky. It was listing badly to one side. I'd broken the wheel. I felt a moment of guilt. This was one of Kym's props.

I picked up the fallen fabric and looked at the panel barcodes. I could see they were over a year old. Since I'd already destroyed the display, I might as well mark them down. I found a red pen and reduced the price to three dollars. I put them in a flat wicker basket. I dragged the broken carriage up to the loft and surveyed the store from above. Already it looked less cluttered. I looked for more things I could change.

From here, I could see everything. My favorite items, the paint sticks and pots of dyes and the art quilt books were stuck on a rack, near the hall. This stuff was expensive. And popular. I would move it up front.

I felt a surge of energy. I ran down the steps, emptied the wooden rack and moved it to where the baby carriage had been. It was heavy, but I didn't mind.